Technical video/kinescope question about TPIR

[Matt Ottinger]

I had this question sent to me by someone who visited my Bill Cullen site.  I know a lot of our members have specific knowledge in this area, so I thought I'd throw it out and see who can help:

The nighttime version of the Price Is Right with Bill Cullen was broadcast from the Colonial Theater in NY. This was NBC's first big color broadcast studio and the show was broadcast live in color. So, why are there no color recordings of the show in existence? Videotape did exist at the time, and NBC did have the capability for color tape at the Colonial Theater. Using proprietary RCA video recorders. Ampex was yet to adopt color to theirs yet. Any insight?

[rugrats1]

Maybe another station was recording it as a black-and-white kinnie, either for themselves (due to programming conflicts), or for another station (which many have NBC (later, ABC) as a secondary affiliate). While NBC had the money to produce and videotape color shows at the time, most TV stations still did not have the means to videotape in color OR black-and-white. Also, color film was still expensive. Therefore, stations preferred B&W kinnies as it was more economical.

The shows themselves were either (a) not recorded by NBC themselves, as they were live, or (b) were recorded by NBC, but the videotape was later destroyed or recycled (either soon after broadcast, or in that 1977 videotape "bonfire").

[TwoInchQuad]

Well, aside from the fact that there appears to be very little in the way of surviving tape from that period in NBC's vaults, the short answer is that we just haven't found any color tapes with an ep on it (or even a true color photo of the set, for that matter)...  They almost certainly were recorded on color tape for at least a short period of time, if only for delayed broadcast to the West Coast.

As was pointed out earlier, though, the general habit around the studios was to re-use tapes as much as possible, since tape was (relatively) very expensive to  use only once.  Further, G-T's preservation contract with the network most likely predated the development of video as an archival format, and therefore, as with WML?, IGAS and TTTT, the only available format was kinescope.  

Now while it is true that NBC had a special "lenticular color" kinescope system set up during this time, in practice it was seldom used (though Jerry Lewis apparently had his NBC series preserved in this manner), again largely because of cost considerations.

And Ampex actually **did** have color 2" machines in place during this time period-- the show ran on NBC until 1963, which was well after they were available on the marketplace, but you may be quite correct in stating that the network insisted on using their own RCA system.  This of course, begs the question:  if we **do** find one, will they have to re-tool a quad machine in order to play it?

That's what happend with the Fred Astaire specials from the 50's.

I **do** remain hopeful, but the search still goes on...

-Kevin

[chris319]

CBS probably has 2" quad machines capable of playing back low-band color. That's probably all that's required as 2" quad was the standard in the early '60s.

[Ian Wallis]

Further, G-T's preservation contract with the network most likely predated the development of video as an archival format, and therefore, as with WML?, IGAS and TTTT, the only available format was kinescope.

So G-T had a preservation contract with the network.  That begs the question as to why so much of their stuff isn't around anymore, such as many daytime "To Tell the Truth", ABC "Password", "Better Sex", daytime CBS "Password", and presumably "Mindreaders", to name a few.

Maybe they didn't have preservation contracts with the other networks?

[chris319]

I don't know where this concept of a "preservation contract" came from, but G-T owned any archival copies that were made of its shows. Possibly G-T and NBC agreed that NBC would use the color videotape copy for DB (delayed broadcast) purposes and that the tape would then be reused and G-T would keep a B&W kine for the archive. Perhaps this was done for economic reasons, perhaps it was done because Goodson thought videotape would never catch on, who knows? I'm only speculating here. If he decided he no longer wanted to keep copies of a show that was Goodson's perogative.

[uncamark]

Also, the smaller market stations that were NBC secondary affiliates probably didn't have the equipment to broadcast in color until the mid-60s, so a black-and-white kinnie served their needs just fine.

At a certain point, prime time "TPIR" became a taped show, even if the daytime version was still live.  In those cases, the kinnie was not a direct tape transfer to film (if there was such a thing back then), but a film recording of the program as it was fed to the network, complete with booth announcer or recorded voice-over promos during the credits and filmed commercials inserted from network Master Control, if needed.  Same with the G-T shows on CBS we see on GSN (as anyone can vouch from the occasional invitation from Harry Morgan over the "TTTT" credits to watch "Pete and Gladys" next on CBS).  They may've attached a seprate filmed network ID at the end of the reel instead of the live network ID which we don't see on GSN (for CBS, the eye irising out to reveal "CBS Television Network," for NBC, the chimes and each letter lighting up with the word "Telerecording" underneath, which they continued to put on the end of kinnies long after the snake logo came in), but it was still a recording of the taped show being fed to the network.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'TwoInchQuad\' date=\'Oct 27 2003, 01:52 AM\'] Well, aside from the fact that there appears to be very little in the way of surviving tape from that period in NBC's vaults, the short answer is that we just haven't found any color tapes with an ep on it (or even a true color photo of the set, for that matter)...  They almost certainly were recorded on color tape for at least a short period of time, if only for delayed broadcast to the West Coast.

As was pointed out earlier, though, the general habit around the studios was to re-use tapes as much as possible, since tape was (relatively) very expensive to  use only once.  Further, G-T's preservation contract with the network most likely predated the development of video as an archival format, and therefore, as with WML?, IGAS and TTTT, the only available format was kinescope.  

Now while it is true that NBC had a special "lenticular color" kinescope system set up during this time, in practice it was seldom used (though Jerry Lewis apparently had his NBC series preserved in this manner), again largely because of cost considerations.

And Ampex actually **did** have color 2" machines in place during this time period-- the show ran on NBC until 1963, which was well after they were available on the marketplace, but you may be quite correct in stating that the network insisted on using their own RCA system.  This of course, begs the question:  if we **do** find one, will they have to re-tool a quad machine in order to play it?

That's what happend with the Fred Astaire specials from the 50's.

I **do** remain hopeful, but the search still goes on...

-Kevin [/quote]
 Actually, Matt has found a color photo...

[TwoInchQuad]

Well, we hoped he had, but after I took a look at it and cleaned it up a bit, it became pretty obvious that it was actually a tinted B&W photo.  The color pallette gave it away.

So, the search goes on...

-Kevin